Finding Home

I have finished the crazy, crazy delegation season: non-stop prep in June, three overlapping deles in July, and one right after the national August vacations, and now have been back in the office for three weeks. Delegations are such beautifully intense weeks of accompanying individuals and groups as they meet and learn about incredible Salvadorans and the many multi-faceted challenges and issues they face. As such, delegations are wonderful, but exhausting. I have been glad to have a breather and return to the office.

These three weeks have given me a glimpse of the other parts of my job consist of. I have actually spent less time in the office than I thought I might, as each week we have had trips out to the different regions that we work with, to meet with the regional CRIPDES teams and interview the women and youth who participate in the projects SHARE’s sistering groups sponsor. It has been inspiring to hear about the multifaceted work each of the regions constantly pour themselves into, and the impact this has on the lives of individuals and communities. This past week I also had the opportunity to attend a forum on transnational watersheds, which I found utterly fascinating. Between trips, forums, emails, reports, and team meetings, my days fill quickly and vary greatly.

Slowly, slowly, like a snail in search of a new shell, I seem to be finding my place here. Time seems to have been such a whirlwind. Already three months have passed, and it seems no time at all. I don’t know if it is the knowledge that I will be here for two years, in the face of which three months is small, that I have been going non-stop, or that I steeped into a somewhat familiar setting, but it doesn’t seem like that long, until I look back at everything that has happened. When I was here in 2008, the first three months seemed so long, and I felt so present to each moment. I had returned to a familiar office, but in a completely different role than I had ever filled, learning so so many new things every day.

Moving is such a process. Even returning to a familiar place, with some familiar people. I have to remember to give myself a little grace in this process and to be intentional about seeking out and weaving the network of friendship and support that can sustain me in daily living and through the long haul. I have transitioned several times in the last few years, between Goshen, Salem, and El Salvador. I find myself learning the same lessons in different ways. Lessons that boil down to the importance of self-care: the importance of taking time to journal, process and reflect. The importance of exercise and sleep. The energy, support, guidance, and care of friends and family.

I am so grateful and glad to have two Salvadoran mothers here. I don’t live with either of them, but when I visit each greets me as “mija,” as her daughter and envelops me in her arms, squeezing me tight. I miss my own family so very much, and it feels so life-giving and comforting to be around people that embrace me as their own, that welcome me as family. For those few days that I am able to visit I bask in the warmth of love, encircled by people I care about dearly, and who show me that they care for me too.

Last weekend I visited my host family in Chambala, my host community when I first came to El Salvador in 2007. Just to see them again and spend time with them participating in their daily routines fills me with such a deep sense of joy. My host mother Sirian always expresses such love and happiness when I arrive. “Mi hija, mi Betanita, que alegría, te quiero muchisimo.” She is one of the most content people I know. She goes through the day smiling, telling stories, singing alabanzas, looking after children and grandchildren, and expressing her gratefulness at being able to provide for her family. This in the midst of her constant dwelling in the kitchen or behind the pila and the batey, cooking meals or washing all her sons’ clothes, plus the uniforms of the two community soccer teams. She has little formal education and does not know how to read the written word, but she is talented at reading people. She always tells me anecdotes about her children as I make tortillas with her or simply sit and give her company.

My host father, Miguel tells folk stories that make the whole family laugh every time they hear them. He grew up working on the large haciendas, picking coffee, along with his father. His mother made the tortillas for all the workers, 500 tortillas a day. He kept his head down, focused on his work and cared little for politics. Then one day during the war, soldiers detained and nearly killed him on the way to work, claiming he was a guerrilla because he carried a machete, which is a basic work tool for any rural farm worker in El Salvador. At the last minute they let him and his cousin go. After that he no longer trusted the army, and began participating in workshops on leadership formation and community organizing. Through the peace accords many families in the area, including theirs were able to obtain land. He loves working the land with his sons and daughters, providing for themselves, and not having to follow the orders of a plantation owner.

Currently he is the president of the community leadership council. Together over the past several years, they have brought many projects to the community, including running water, electricity, reforestation campaigns, and a soccer field. The water project includes a sanitation and health education component in which twelve community members get materials and a training on a given subject once a month and then go out and visit all the households in the community, and share the information.

I love talking with my host dad because he always has so much to share about what they are currently working on in the community and the municipality. He also has very thoughtful opinions about what happens at the national and international levels. The two things he cares most about are his family and his community.

Miguel and Sirian have eight children and eight grandchildren, two of which they are raising as their own. Their five youngest sons and daughters live at home, while the older three have started their own families and live in the next couple houses over. My host siblings and I play cards, baseball, and soccer, tease each other and tell jokes, riddles, and tongue twisters on and off throughout the day, between and during working in the fields, making tortillas, visiting other community members, and going to community soccer games.

Sometimes I wish that my work at SHARE were directly rooted in a specific community so that I could create those deep relationships that come from shared days, activities, and conversations. Nevertheless, my role at SHARE is not one that could easily be replaced by a Salvadoran, and it is a role in which I believe I can make a real difference. I truly love the work that the SHARE Foundation is doing in supporting rural communities to organize and stand up for themselves, and the way that they facilitate this work through long term sister relationships. I think that rooting delegations in these long term relationships holds a much deeper potential for long term change both for Salvadorans and for the North Americans that participate in the delegations.

We work with many communities and organizations and they are all doing such incredibly inspiring work at both a very local and at regional and national levels. To really create change, each of these fronts is essential. If families do not have enough to eat or send their children to school, they will not have the time or energy to dedicate to working for broader change. At the same time, one family or even one community will not be able to have the same voice or recognition that a whole region of organized and interconnected communities do. Projects meeting daily basic needs and projects involving training, education, and advocacy seeking long-term change for communities, regions, and the country as a whole, together are more important than I could ever express.

While transition is always challenging, and this has been a particularly busy one, which has sometimes made orienting myself and sending out roots a little rocky, I am glad to be here in this moment. I am glad to be working for an organization that really seeks to support Salvadoran organizations wholeheartedly luchando for these immediate and structural changes. And I have incredible co-workers right alongside me. Also, I love that I have the opportunity and ability to go visit my host family and friends from previous times here in El Salvador.

So little by little I am starting to find a home here, though it will be an ongoing process. To link some pop-culture, here is a link to “A House is not a Home” sung by Chris Colfer on Glee. It’s from the episode “Home,” all about figuring out how to be at home with oneself, and how to find, create, and be at home. ☺ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXk5WjYFBZc